I have a monthly mobile phone contract with Virgin Media and when my contract was last un for renewal, just over a year ago, I decided to go with the Nokia N8, I didn't have to pay anything extra on top of my usually monthly contract charges for the phone. I pay around £20 a month for unlimited texts, unlimited virgin to virgin calls, 1gb Internet and 500 mins.

Personally when looking for a new phone, the most important feature to me (besides the standard calling and texting ability of course) is to have a decent camera. I am always taking photos of my son so the fact that the N8 has a 12mp camera and hd video made my decision on which phone to choose very easy.

The Nokia N8 arrived well packaged in the box packaging that most mobile phones come in. Included in the box was the phone, a charger, headphones, USB cable an a hdmi cable (which you can use to connect to a hd tv and view your phones contents, such as photos and videos). Most phones that I have owned in the past have arrived without the battery installed but with the Nokia N8 the battery is already installed and can't actually be removed. You can hold the power button down for a few seconds to completely reset the battery, which acts the same as removing the battery.

It took me a short while to get used the N8 as it's the first Smart Phone I have owned. You can set several "desktop" screens on the phone which is very useful if you like to have lots of shortcuts, each screen can also have it's own individual wallpaper. The phone has a touchscreen, with one button the the front of the phone, a volume control button on the side of the phone, along with a camera button and a sliding switch for locking and unlocking the phone. There are also connections on the sides, top and bottom for the battery charger, USB and hdmi cables and slots for your sim card and a memory card.

As previously mentioned, you can set you many shortcuts on several desktop screens, however, when the phone is in the unlocked mode you can press the button on the bottom left hand corner of the screen for the main menu, where you can access all areas of the phone, such as applications, messages, contacts etc. There are quite a few useful shortcuts that I like to use, such as notifications, which shows if I have any messages or missed calls, an email shortcut, favourite contacts, social networks and photos. You can easily tailor the phone to your own needs and preferences.

Nokia phones come with Ovi software, which I use regularly to back up my phone, including photos, videos and contacts, you can also back up your text messages if you like to keep them. Updates are also regularly available for both the ovi software and the N8 phone. The ovi store also provides many free and paid for apps, there is a large choice but not as many available as for iPhone or android phones.

I do like this phone, I am very happy with the layout and customisation, the battery life is decent (I charge it over night every couple of days) and I have been very impressed with the camera and hd video and memory space. However, i have experienced several irritating problems with this phone, which seem to come and go with updates. For instance, my phone occasionally states I have no photo's stored, which really panicked me the first couple of times but I now know they will reappear when I restart my phone. I have also had problems where the message alert tone stopped working for a while, my notifications shortcut sometimes decides to stop letting me know I have received messages and sometimes my shortcuts won't work until I have restated my phone! For these reasons I wouldn't recommend buying this phone unless the camera feature is very important to you, for me the camera and hd video do make up for all the other little problems I have had. My Mom and one of my friends also have this phone and both have experienced similar problems.

For more information, such as technical specs visit http://www.nokia.com/gb-en/products/phone/n8-00/